“What did you see out there?” he rasps, resuming dabbing at my brow.
“I already told you. Wolves and a large beast. If it was a bear, it was the biggest one I’ve ever seen.”
“And the wolves?”
“They were huge, as well.”
“Too large for normal wolves,” he agrees, but to himself, and bitterly.
What are not-normal wolves?
The man’s gaze lands on Finley, and he draws an enormous forefinger down the child’s cheek. I pull the baby away from him. This isn’t a villager, it’s a lone man and a stranger. He could be anyone, do anything; he could be more dangerous to Finley and me than even a pack of wolves.
The man stares at me for a long time, those brown eyes mesmerizing. Then he stands up and goes to the door. He opens it and stands framed in the doorway, his huge bulk blocking out the thin moonlight reflected off the snow.
“There’s nothing out there now,” he says into the wintry air, vapor curling around his lips. Beyond him, the forest is silent and dark.
He turns to me, eyes narrowed. Flakes fall onto his massive shoulders and they glisten in the lamplight.
“Kochanie,” he purrs. “What were you doing out there in the middle of the night with no one to protect you?”
Chapter Two
Balen
The young woman is beautiful, but her eyes shine with fear. I close the door behind me and hunker down before her once more. I gaze at the child, enraptured by his tiny, perfect eyelashes and stubby little fingers. How long it’s been since I’ve held a baby. Fed it so it grows strong. Held its hands while it takes its first steps.
I reach out to the little one, but the woman clutches it closer and shrinks away. My hand curls into a fist and drops to my side. “It’s too dangerous to be alone in the forest with a baby. Stay here until you heal. I’ll not bother you.”
She’s still staring at me. “You’re hurt.”
I reach up and feel wetness, and several long, thin gashes, as if I’ve been swiped by claws. “Must have caught it on a branch. Where are your people?”
“In the village at the bottom of the mountain.” She hesitates, her eyes filling with tears. “They cast me out.”
I grunt in sympathy and get to my feet. “Those people. They let other people fight their battles, but they’ll never accept you if you’re different.” I eye the top of her golden head, wondering what this pretty little thing did to earn the villagers’ hatred. She can’t be much more than eighteen, and she’s strong if she made it all the way up this mountain in the dark and cold. She’d make someone a good wife.
The human-half of me betrays a flicker of interest.
The bear-half shifts restlessly. He doesn’t want a human wife. He wants a mate.
Impossible, I tell him, and he growls in anger. He’s been agitated for hours. He kept me awake long after I should have been asleep. I don’t know what’s got into him tonight.
I turn away from the woman. “Lie down and rest. The wolves can’t get in here.”
I stoke the fire in the pot-bellied stove, and then sit down on the floor opposite her with my back propped against the wall. It’s not comfortable, but I can doze and listen for the sounds of that mangy, flea-ridden pack sniffing around my door.
All through the small hours, the woman feeds and watches over the child and flinches at any small sound outside. Just before dawn, she falls asleep. I doze a little more, until the falling temperature rouses me into wakefulness.
In the thin morning light, I add logs to the stove as quietly as I can and tear a worn-out sheet into large squares. The woman opens her eyes as I’m folding them into a neat pile.
“For the baby,” I explain.
My whisper wakes the child, and even before his eyes open, he starts to cry. The sound shoots into my brain and straight down to my heart. The woman sitting on my bed looks tired and rumpled and suddenly so much like Ethelle did after a long night, and without thinking, I reach for the baby and lift him out of her arms.
“No!”
I freeze, looking down into the woman’s shocked face. The baby squirms against me, strong and warm. Slowly, I lay the child down beside her, and pass her a cloth and step back.
The baby’s bright blue eyes are staring at my unfamiliar face. He reminds me of my own sons and daughters. I remember them all as clear as morning, though more than ninety years has passed. My wife died fifty years ago; my last child died nearly fifteen years ago. The pain of all that loss makes me wonder why I took a human wife in the first place. The loneliness has lay upon me like a curse ever since. Female bear shifters are so rare that I’ve never even seen one. I thought perhaps one of my daughters might be a skinbearer, and a mate for some other lonely bear, but they were all mortal like their mother.
As the woman changes the baby, he grabs his feet and gurgles, still gazing at me. The woman smiles and strokes her finger down his nose. The pain and longing in my heart doubles.
“What’s his name?” I ask huskily.
“Finley. He’s five months old.”
“And your name?”
She hesitates, moistening her lips. Pretty lips, pink and full, and with an intelligence to them, as if she never speaks a word she’s not thought carefully about. “Carys.”
She whispers it like cold wind through the trees. Her small hands tuck a fold of fabric around the baby’s middle. Too tender to be cast out and hated. Too young to have done anything to be hated for. So precious, and she was cast out like trash.
“Did the father not want you?” I growl, hot jealousy and anger burning in my chest. If I had a mate I could grow old with, I’d tear the world apart rather than let her out of my sight.
Carys’ eyes fill with confusion. “I think the wolves got him.”
Those cursed wolves. If I see them again, I’ll break all their necks and skin their hides from their backs.
Carys picks up a damp cloth and dabs at her forehead, which has bled again in the night. The scent of her blood twines through my senses. Suddenly, without warning, the bear within me roars. Her.
He wants her.
I grasp the windowsill. No, you fool. She’s just another human.
I snarl and curse under my breath as the bear roars again. I need to get out of here before she sees the beast in my face.
I pull my cloak on and head out into the snow. My chest feels tight, and I walk hard until the tightness becomes an ache so strong that I can barely breathe. With a howl of anguish, I throw off my cloak and turn my face to the sky. The bear swells within me. Bones pop. Muscles bulge. Fur ripples down my chest and arms. I howl again, and the howl becomes a roar as I fall onto all fours.
The scents of the forest invade my nose. I smell the wolf pack and their lingering residue of dirty fur and piss. Foul little scavengers on my mountain. I run through the snow in a large circle around the cabin, far enough away that the woman won’t see me among the trees, but I can sense her. I can smell her, too. Sweet and delicate like summer fruit, and something else. Something I have to deny myself, because I won’t go through all that pain again, even for a moment of sweetness.
She stays that night, and then the next. Her head aches and she’s weakened from cold and fear. It’s torture to keep catching her scent and seeing her body as she tenderly holds the baby. I imagine crushing her lips to mine and taking her into my bed. I stare at my huge, rough hands, remembering how she felt in my arms. Picturing what it would be like if she stayed.